new hampshire will be bursting with presidential hopefuls today when mitt romney officially enters the race. while sarah palin presses the flush and rudy giuliani raises some money. the tabloids are having a field day with congressman anthony weiner's twitter troubles. and while weiner can't say with certitude whether the dirty pick is him or not, it seems the more he talks, the worse things get. damning testimony from casey anthony's brother as the case reaches the halfway point of the death penalty trial. good morning, i'm chris jansing. residents are describing it as the most frightening ordeal they've ever been through. take a look at this incredible video. shows one of those killer tornadoes that tore through western and central massachusetts late yesterday. four people were killed, 33 more were injured in the city of springfield alone. and for those who lived through it, they say it's something they'll never forget. >> we had a tornado come down,

and took off houses behind our building. >> obviously very emotional. nbc's mike taibbi is in springfield, massachusetts. >> reporter: people around here had not seeneáeájjt quite like this in almost half a century. this footage captured as the tornado touched down in springfield. the driver stopping in absolute disbelief to document the twister as it clawed at everything in its path. >> oh, my god. [ bleep ] [ bleep ] ♪ >> this is a 22 news storm team weather alert. >> narrator: it -- >> reporter: it was after 4:30 in the afternoon -- >> at least one tornado has touched down. >> reporter: in the end two fully formed tornadoes had

scraped the landscape of springfield and a dozen nearby towns, leaving everyone shaken. >> all of the buildings collapsed, the back of my aunt's house is gone. she has nowhere to go. >> it was like the "wizard of oz." i was waiting for the witch to come flying by. >> reporter: shaken and thankful to be alive. >> i'm grateful to god that he protected us. >> reporter: the tornado collapsed several building, and around the city aged trees were yanked to the ground. roofs blown off, homes badly damaged. power lines down, highway signs toppled. even a trailer on its side. the destruct a-- destruction an damage so widespread that the governor called for an emergency response. >> we have a emergency on our hands so i have declared a state of emergency across the commonwealth. we've called up to 1,000 national guard members to help with search and rescue, with debris removal. >> reporter: by day's end, an

army of crews was responding coming in from other states. another powerful tornado wreaking havoc and costing lives in a season of perilous weather that has seemed relentless. >> that was nbc's mike taibbi. we'll have much more later in the hour with nbc meteorologist bill karins. from a chili cookout to a pizza summit, republicans are trying to serve up excitement for 2012. a new poll shows just the opposite -- 37% of republicans surveyed say they're unhappy with the choices they have right now for president. in two hours, mitt rot me to wi -- mitt romney will make it official, announcing he's running, as well as sarah palin and rudy giuliani. joining me former michigan governor jennifer granholm. good to see you, good morning. >> good morning. >> this poll i mentioned asks people for a single word to

describe the current field. and the most popular word was "unimpressed." but should the democrats be worried? >> well, i think things are looking pretty good even with the economic news from yesterday. there was a lot of commentary this morning from experts who were saying that the president's going to have a tough time if the unemployment rate remains high. however, it's all about a choice, right? a campaign, an election is. so when you pit the president against any of these republicans, i think he is going to have a much easier time than people think. one example -- mitt romney, everybody says he's the front-runner. he's been planning for however many months for this thday's announcement. sarah palin taking the air out of his tires by showing up in new hampshire the same day. >> i don't want to be rude, but i want to interrupt you there. i don't know if you've seen this, this morning, about an hour ago, sarah palin was asked about that. is she sort of taking the

spotlight off of mitt romney today when he's announcing. here's what she said -- okay, we don't have it. here's what she said. they gave it to me -- she said, "i think that's exciting for him. i think that's great. coincidental that we are in the same territory at the same time,"ç coincidental, she says. "more power to mitt as she announces his campaign and best of luck to him." do you buy it? >> that is so funny. that is so funny. it is not coincidence at all. people, i think, knock her a lot, and there's a lot of people on this network that have knocked her a lot. but she is crazy like a fox. she is showing up, she knows that she's going to suck a lot of that oxygen right away from him. let me talk about him for one second if i could, chris. it's so interesting. mitt romney has got three major problems. one is, of course, as everybody has talked about, he's a major flip-flopper. it's been everything from

t.a.r.p., from the auto bailout, which by the way he's taking credit for. from abortion, from the single -- individual mandate. he's got no core. that's -- even in addition to two other problems, one is when he was governor of massachusetts, massachusetts from 2003 through 2007 was the 47th in the country in terms of job growth. i say this as a governor of state who had a terrible job growth record because we had overconcentration in manufacturing and saw what happened with the auto industry. massachusetts didn't have an excuse like that. the other state that was in, you know, in the cellar with massachusetts and michigan and ohio because of the manufacturing was louisiana. they had a hurricane. so what -- what's the deal with massachusetts under his leadership when it's got a diverse economy, highly educated? >> given all that, i saw the headline, i'm sure you did, too, in "the new york times" today. the first paragraph of their

political story said, "no president since franklin roosevelt has won re-election with unemployment above 7.2%." is that bigger than almost any adversary? >> clearly the economy is the biggest thing. but this is about a choice. and so mitt romney's other problem is that before he became governor, he was heading ;úçm/d capital, a ventureç capital fi. you go into companies, you lay people off. and often you invest overseas. this is an exact replica of what happened in michigan in 2006. i ran against -- i had -- michigan had the highest unemployment rate in the nation because of the auto industry. i ran again a wealthy person who was a private sector businessman. he did the same thing, laid off people in michigan. invested overseas in china. our point was he's not the solution, he's the problem. and i think the obama administration is going to be able to make the same case. he's not the solution, he's

parts of the problem. that, i think is a winning argument. >> governor granholm, good to see you. thank you for coming on. >> great to see you, too. thank you very much. anthony weiner grilled. a public relations debacle for the new york congressman continuing to deny that he tweeted a graphic picture of a man's crotch. but then he won't say whether the man in the photo is him. more details coming up. the charter plane taking major league baseball's los angeles angels home after a game was forced to make an emergency landing at lax because of a mechanical problem. about 60 people were on board the boeing 737 including victor rojas that tweeted that it was pretty scary. typically the charter would have landed at the smaller orange county airport, but it did get down safely with no injuries. british officials say this morning that they're confirming seven e. coli cases in the deadly outbreak that's already killed 18 people and made hundreds more sick across

europe. the world health organization says this bacterial strain is entirely new, super toxic, and highly infectious, and while labs are working overtime to figure out where it came from, russia has now banned all raw produce imported from europe. casey anthony's brother on the stand at the murder trialç talking about a confrontation with his sister weeks after little caylee's disappearance. overseas, the night sky littered with tracer fire in yemen. dozens have been killed. richard lui with the hot spots. >> reporter: good morning, plus we take you to libya. an attack where senator john mccain recently held a press conference. and a plant that stops -- plan that stops the fighting, that and more ahead.

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house democrats head to the white house this afternoon to talk to the president about the debt ceiling. it should be a little more friendly affair than yesterday's frosty meeting with house republicans on the same çissue. the nation, as you probably know, will hit the limit on its so-called credit card in august. neither side appears willing to make major concessions. in chicago, former illinois governor rod blagojevich back on the stand today. his testimony yesterday, a little shaky as he try today to explain his infamous statements about president obama's senate seat. prosecutors played that well-known recording where he said, "i'm not just going to give it up for nothing." then he told the court, "i'm afraid to answer this, but i'm not quite sure how to answer it." at the casey anthony trial, today's the day jurors could see hours of controversial tapes, conversations with family member recorded at the orange county jail.

prosecutors are now entering day eight of what's been a highly emotional trial. kerry sanders outside the courthouse in orlando, florida. getting live pictures again. what's going on there? >> reporter: right now as we take you live inside the courtroom, we have detective yuri mellick, one of the investigators initially assigned to the disappearance of a 2-year-old little girl. he's on the stand, testifying to as how they approached the case. the defense wants to know why certain things took place such as why they took her to this fictitious job at universal studios when they knew she didn't work there. they checked the records and let her take them there as if she worked there, took her down hallways, as if she worked there. that's questioning police procedures. you see casey anthony in the courtroom on this, yes, day eight.

one of the questions that the judge has yet to answer is whether he is going to allow in those jailhouse tapes. these are videotapes that were recorded more than five hours worth, videotapes where she is seated in the jail talking on the video phone toç family and friends. they reveal quite a bit about her personality. that's what the defense fears -- that it will reveal her character and will be prejudicial. frankly, the jury has already heard quite a bit about her character including from her brother, lee anthony, who was on the stand. >> when you asked your sister "why won't you allow us to see caylee," what do you recall her saying? >> i told detective edwards that she said, paraphrasing, because maybe i'm a spiteful [ bleep ]. >> reporter: that beeped word would rhyme with witch.

chris, the ongoing development here by the prosecution is that lay out as many factual statements against her lies and to build a little bit about who she was as a person, to develop her character for the jury. the defense is waiting for their opportunity to try to tell a different story while they're asking the prosecution witnesses all of this. they have a different theory that they want the jury to hear. of course they've presented that. that is that 2-year-old was not murdered by her mother, casey, but she accidently drowned in the back yard swimming pool, and that there was this misguided cover-up. >> kerry sanders, thank you very much. i'm joined by msnbc legal analyst and former prosecutor susan filen. casey anthony looks put together, she cries, she hears about her daughter who's gone. yet you hear her brother's

testimony. we may be able to see and hear the tapes. tell us the impacts of this. >> again, very damaging for casey. another bad day for the defense. another good day for the prosecution because casey is probably not going to testify. but by putting this evidence in through the state, she's testifying, and she's testifying essentially against herself,ç convicting herself with her own words much like in the scott peterson case. >> obviously the defense doesn't want the jailhouse tapes in. essential the judge said if you have a problem with this, you should have done this months ago. i was shocked by this. >> the judge said we set a time for motions and redacting this, now it's too late. >> have you heard of this in a case this big, where somebody's life at -- is at stake that they didn't file on time? >> it's possible they didn't realize the extent to which the tapes were sent to the

prosecution. it's hard to defend that. >> good to see you as always. anthony weiner has the word of the day -- certitude, as in he can't say with certitude that it's not him in a kinky photo. the latest details next. first, late night comics are having a field day with the story. >> i'm not certain about a lot of things. there are three things in this world that i do have certitude on. "empire strikes back" is the best "star wars" movie. [ applause ] >> o.j. -- o.j. killed those two people. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> and the third one is what my erect penis looks like in my own underwear. >> either anthony weiner has too many photos of his crotch to keep track, or certitude is his nickname for his penis. [ laughter ] time for your entrepreneur

of the week. amanda crowe of oceanview, virginia, was a special ops parachuter in the navy. she liked the structure of organization and military life which made buying a franchise ideal when she retired. she bought into a postnet franchise. she's making a profit and loves being her own boss.

yesterday, from 1:00 until almost 10:00, a sat down with interviews that anyone that wanted to answer questions etensively, making it there -- extensively, making it cheer i did not send pictures from my twitter account. after almost 11 hours of answering questions, any that anyone wanted to put, today i have to get back to work doing the job that i'm paid to do. i appreciate your patience and understanding. >> that was anthony weiner just moments ago, coming out of his office, trying to put an end to the story. it's not going away. now he says his twitter account was hacked, that he did not send out a naughty picture. but what he won't flat-out say is it's not him in that photo. >> i can't say for sure. i don't want to say with certitude, i'm not trying to be evasive. i don't know. >> is it possible that this started out as a private photo of yours ended up in the public domain accidently or in a way you didn't intend?

>> well, it could be, or it could have been a photograph that was -- that's taken out of context or manipulated or changed in some way. >> nbc's luke russert interviewed him, as well, luke, he's doing all these interviews, but that central question we've not gotten a ) to. i'm not sure what it means when you say that a photo was taken out of context. >> reporter: nobody's certain what it means. you can't be sure with certitude if that is a photograph of yourself. i think that most folks, the general public would agree, that angle, if you're taking a photo below the belt, you would remember it had you done it. and you heard congressman weiner in front of his office saying he gave interviews for 11 hours trying to clear the air. the air is still quite, shall we say, hazy because of the fact no one really knows whether or not that photograph was of him. take a listen to what i asked him -- congressman, you remember if you were to take a photograph of

yourself like that. you don't -- >> well, you know, one of the things we've asked an internet security firm to come in is to see if something was manipulated or dropped in. we don't know for sure what happened here. >> reporter: you will not flat-out deny that that photograph is not you? >> here's what i will say. i will say that we're trying to figure out exactly what happened here. >> reporter: his democratic colleagues, chris, are quite, shall we say, per tuturbepertur? they wanted to focus on hammering away at paul ryan's plan and the jobs bills to help the economy. that has been, shall we say, lost in the shuffle that is weiner-gate. chris? >> luke russert, thank you very much. let's bring in michael steele, former chair of the rnc and former dnc communications director karen finney, both msnbc political analysts. i just want to play for you a set of clips first because he does keep saying the same thing

consistently. listen. >> i can't say for sure. i don't want to say with certitude -- i can't say with certitude. i can say with certitude that i have -- >> karen, he's on message. >> he sure is, chris. wow. it's -- i mean, you know, here's the thing -- at the most, i think this is potentially, you know, a picture, maybe itç was personal picture that got on the public domain. it was stupid and handled very poorly, particularly for someone like anthony weiner who's known to be media savvy. the first day it happened, he should have come out and said whatever he was going to say and shut up about it. every time you go back and try to fix it, you're essentially creating fresh pictures and fresh quotes that, as we're seeing today, gets run and run and run. and unless you've got something new and definitive to say, you're not really helping yourself. >> michael steele, i'm sure you've been in rooms where somebody has made a p.r.

blunder, you're trying to figure out what to do. should he just say, yes, it's me, no, it's not me? >> absolutely. i think karen hit it on the head. i mean, the fact that this has become a five-day story from this weekend is ridiculous. and the congressman is largely -- absolutely to blame for it. and we -- i know his people are telling him, look, get in front this thing, stay in front of it, and it will go away. you may not be certain whether the image is yours, but you should be certain as to whether or not the underwear is yours. you know what you put on every day when you get up to go to work. a lot of this is actually -- it's insulting the intelligence of the media and the american to sit there and look the country in the eye and say that you don't know. >> you've been under fire before. you've been some situations where you're under media fire. >> absolutely. >> can you think clearly? >> yes. yes! you -- >> wait a second. wait a second. i remember -- >> you know why you can think clearly? because when you're off camera, you've got people in the room

who are laying out for you step by step the message. >> michael, i've seen you make mistakes that were -- lasted over a week when you've insulted your donors, you were the chairman of the party. and that story went on for almost two weeks. >> absolutely. but look -- >> the point is in this instance, he made a stupid mistake. >> the media drives it. >> the media does drive it. the point is he made a mistake. it was stupid. it's time to move on.man weiner- >> do you think realistically, are the viewers out there, are the voters out there saying you know what, it was probably a stupid mistake, or do they say, here's somebody who's not being up front with us and does it hurt his chances for what he has said multiple times is his dream job, to be new york city mayor? >> you know what i think they're really saying -- and i mean this sincerely -- i think they're saying why are we spending so much time about this when i can't pay my bills, i don't have a job, i'm worried about my medicare? sincerely, i think this is an example of where we are so off base on what people care about, particularly on an issue that

this is not the same thing, for example, as the ensign scandal where laws were broken. this is just a stupid prank. again, he screwed it up. we got that. let's move on. >> do you think voters will, michael? >> karen, you're assuming that, you know, he -- that he sent it because he's saying that he didn't send it in which case laws were broken. so there is that section that he has not completed for the media and for the american people. >> stop. stop. >> i agree with you -- i agree this is crazy stuff to talk about. the fact is he has control of making it go away by answering mr. russert's simple question -- is that you in the picture. >> thanks to both of you. let us know what you think on twitter. send me your comments and questions. later i'll post a new video answering some of the them @jansingco on twitter. multiple tornadoes in massachusetts. at least four people killed.

what is behind the rash of devastating weather and who might be in for it next? productivity news out this morning. suggests that businesses will have to start hiring. lap lap -- nicole lapin is here next. there's another way to minimize litter box odor: purina tidy cats. tidy cats premium line of litters now works harder to help neutralize odors in multiple-cat homes. and our improved formula also helps eliminate dust. so it's easier than ever to keep your house smelling just the way you want it. purina tidy cats. keep your home smelling like home. fiber one. almost tastes like one of jack's cereals. uh, forgot jack's cereal. [ jack ] what's for breakfast? uh, try the number one! i've never heard of that. [ wife ] it's great. it's a sweet honey cereal, you'll love it. yeah, this is pretty good.

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welcome back to "jansing & co.," weather update, incredible pictures and footage out of massachusetts. they weren't alone. first things first, pictures out of massachusetts. this tornado rolling over the top of the connecticut river. really incredible stuff. look at the water being sucked up into the tornado and thrown along with all the debris. this looks like something universal pictures would make in a movie. i mean, as it moves left, it crosses the bridge with rush hour traffic on it. what a story they have to tell. in all, four fatalities in massachusetts. now to california. yes, we had tornadoes yesterday on one coast and the other. this one's off in the distance,

yuba city area. a well-defined wall cloud lowering from the base of the thunderstorm. reported tornado on the ground. this one thankfully did no damage. where do we stand with four fatalities yesterday? we are now at the fifth deadliest year on record for tornadoes. i mean, 522 people lost their lives this year. the next in the line is 1927 with ç540, hopefully we'll nev get there. we're not expecting a lot of tornadoes today. just a little bad weather in iowa and northern missouri this morning. later this afternoon, if we're going to see tornadoes, they'll be in the northern plains, into the dakotas, i think what's going to be a bigger story is the summer heat. it's building through the end of the week and weekend. look at temperatures today, 97 in dallas. chris, it's already summer in dallas. temperature 95 to near 100 all week long. back to you. >> okay. thank you very much. here's some other stories people are talking about now. the u.s. and pakistan forming a new joint intelligence team to go after top terror suspects. this comes after secretary of

state hillary clinton visited pakistan, presenting them with a list of most wanted. all part of an attempt to restore trust on both sides since that secret u.s. mission to pakistan that led to the killing of osama bin laden a month ago today. google says hundreds of gmail accounts were hacked, passwords stolen, including some of senior u.s. officials. military personnel as well as political activists. the company says the hack originated in the same city in china that was tied to a google hack more than a year ago. china officially denies supporting any hacking activity. check out this video of a close encounters with a hammerhead shark. the eight to nine-foot shark was behind the divers when one of them managed to shoot this video. how about this rare shark sighting? closed down a beach on long island in new york. two sharks estimatesed to be 16 to 18-feet long. it looks like a normal

soccer game. not one, not two, then every player goes down. we'll explain what happened. we'll go down to the wire in 20 minutes. speaking of going down, wall street trying to recover this morning after yesterday's brutal beating. stocks saw the biggest drop in a year about new worries on jobs, the auto industry, and manufacturing. cnbc's nicole lapin, host of "w'dwide exchange," is here, seemed like we were on a roll? what happened? >> then it turned nasty. the softening is spreading across the board. that's really what economists are looking to. they can't really get a handle on the data. look at what's happening -- stocks are struggling to find their ftseing. on one hand we have good productivity numbers. on the other hand, not as much as a drop in jobless claims as we would have liked. here's what the market's doing. basically flat across the board. we're trying to figure this data out. we just got retail sales out. they're bifurcated. on one hand we have gap and target lower than expectations. on the other side we have macy's

and costco above expectations. the same with auto sales. we have g.m. and ford down. we have chrysler up. economists are telling me we're trying to make the most of all of the data. it's not just the marquee data, the manufacturing and jobs numbers. that's what everybody's holding their breath for. tomorrow is the big daddy of them all. tomorrow is the big jobs report. everybody's waiting for that. >> we'll see you here tomorrow, nicole, thank you. >> absolutely. a stunning new report from the census bureau shows the hispanic population in the u.s. is growing much faster than expected. more than 50 million latinos in the u.s. 60% of the population. up 43% over the past decade. hispanic voting is on the rise. in 2008, 2.2 million more latinos went to the polls than in 2004. joining me, democratic congresswoman loretta sanchez, and telemundo anchor jose diaz

balart. congresswoman, it's clear that this report represents an enormous opportunity for your party, potentially for the other party. what's the strategy by democrats to look in these voters? >> it depends what you're looking at. we see at the local level that many latinos are being elected. but the place where we haven't been elected, for example, is intoç the congress. in the congress, we'll look at california. california sends 53 people to the house of representatives. california's almost 50% hispanic. yet we have only six congressional seats. this year's important. it's incredibly important because this is where we redo the districts. where we do the redistricting. and we are hoping, for example, in california that we should reflect more of the population, the voting age population of california, and, therefore, get many more latinos elected to the congress. and across in arizona, in texas and places like that, we're seeing more of this, and we're

hoping that the redistricting works in that manner. it should -- >> i want to bring up a map if i can and some statistics. one of the striking things about this report is that growth is hardly limited to the border region. what is the hispanic sort of trends of settlement look like? i mean, look at that, jose. i don't know if you can see this. in the south, up 57%. midwest, 49%. west and northeast up more than 30%. >> yeah, it's fascinating. good morning to you, chris, and congresswoman sanchez, always a privilege to be with you. what's interesting and the congresswoman was talking about the growth of the hispanic community. and yet the feeble growth as far as elected officials are concerned. it's interesting that in this last congressional election the majority of hispanics elected to the house were republicans. and some of those if not most of them aren't very clear on how they stand on immigration reform. so what the congresswoman is talking about, i think is

fundamental that both political parties have to be very keen on understanding. the growth of the hispanic community is mostly in people born in the united states. every month 50,000 latino kids turn 18 years of age in the united states. and how are you going toç reac out to them when many in thekpí hispanic community see both political parties is not really in tune with what their real issues are. >> you know, one of the things, congresswoman, is that we talk about hispanics or latinos, but you can't really look at them in a block. they're mexican, they're cuban, they're -- they're columbian. i think contrary to perceptions, and you just -- you know, you heard this from jose. they're not all democrats. >> right. we're not all a block. and in fact, we have different aspirations. clearly the majority of hispanics in the united states, over 65%, are of mexican descent. but you have cubans, you have

puerto rican, you have latin americans, you have all types. and you have them not just in california and new york city where we typically would think they would be, but you have them where the jobs have been, whether it's in nebraska or in arkansas. i revenue ten years ago i went to -- i remember ten years ago i went to rogers, arkansas, where the increase in one year had been by 18%. that was because of the poultry industry there. so they go where the jobs are. and the fact of the matter is, both parties need to really listen up and hear what latinos are saying. i think because they're a younger group of people that the education issue is incredibly important. and on that, i would have to say democrats continue and have been and continue to be much better than republicans. so i think there's a natural sway for them to come democratic but we have to work at it. >> congresswoman sanchez, jose

diaz balart. thank you. as always, you can watch jose each network on our sister network telemundo. out with the old and in with pq new? what do these skimpy costumes have to do with a lawsuit gaejs a major atlantic city casino hotel? and we want to know what you think about the stories we're covering. head to jansingco on facebook. [ male announcer ] diane was already

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another big controversy out of atlantic city where nine cocktail waitresses have filed a lawsuit against a casino they worked for over some tight and revealing new costumes. the women say the resorts casino hotel fired them in march and replaced them with younger women after they couldn't fitç into '20s flapper-style costumes the casino wanted them to wear. joining me is gloria allred, representing the women, and one of the waitresses, margaret depan-phyllis. margie, what happened to you? >> i was rehired with the new owners. and i worked for resorts for 32 years. i had an excellent attendance record. i was an outstanding employee. i was always early for worker. and i did a fantastic job as a cocktail server. >> they come and say we've got these new outfits, then what? >> first they asked us to -- to

train the new girls. and i was on a 90-day probation period. and i trained the new girls. and after the training was over on the last day of the probation, they fired me. >> and did they say "here's why we're letting you go"? >> yes, they said "you did not meet the uniform requirement. we are sorry." >> gloria, we of course contacted resorts casino hotel. let me read for you the statement they gave to us. "resorts is confident it has acted in accordance with all legal requirements in its employment decisions. we empathize with the cocktail servers who lost their jobs and gave them hiring preference in other open positions at resorts. some took advantage this offer, some did not." your reaction? >> yes. we think that we have a very strong age and/or sex discrimination suit against resorts. by the way, all of our clients

were willing to wear that new, skimpy, sexier, black flapper uniform that you just showed. and all of them did participate in the photo shoot. but we consider that the sham evaluation. we think the law does not allow an employer to basically exclude or deny a job or decides to discriminate on -- or decide to discriminate on the fact that someone is older or doesn't fit into that youthful, sexier, feminine stereotype that we believe resorts had. and that's why we're suing. you have someone like margie working there 33 years. a fabulous employee. basically she is kicked to the curb. she is thrown out, we allege, because of her age and sex. and we think that this is wrong. it's now a national issue. we believe there's a trend of,

you know, throwing out older women in favor of the young so-called sexier women. i think women who are older can also be beautiful and sexy, and should not be denied jobs because of their age. >> i think realistically, you know what the argument is going to be -- that women who look like the ones i see on the billboards, bring in customers, keep customers, they get the customers to spends more money. frankly, while there's a job for a great employee like margie, maybe it's not that particular one. >> the idea that women, young women can be used as bait simply to help their employer make a -- what they consider to be a greater profit, to lure young, male customers in and then also to deny jobs to older women and deny them equal employment opportunity because it might help make a bigger profit for the employer, we think is against the law.

they did make a better profit with the older employees. even if that were not true, no, we don't think that they can deny jobs to older women, basically fire them which is what they did to thesç women simply because they think that they can do -- make a greater profit for that reason. they don't have a license to discriminate. any more than anyone else does. if they want to be in business, they have to obey all of the laws. >> gloria allred, margie deann-phyllis, thanks for being with us. our tweet of the day comes from shaquille o'neal who writes, "i'm retiring." leaving after 19 years. he did also tweet a video. >> i know you heard i just announced i'm retiring. i need your help. help me come up with a new nickname. tell me back and use the hash tag to chat with me. i love you. >> the leading contender is the big 401(k). as you can imagine, shaq trending on twitter, getting

celebrity reaction. tiger woods tweetsed, "shaq, thank you for everything, i'm going to miss you. time to tee it up." and from magic johnson, "thank you for leading the lakers to three titles. we loved every minute of it. i often wonder how many they would have won if he stayed." [ man ] ♪ trouble ♪ trouble, trouble trouble, trouble ♪ ♪ trouble been doggin' my soul ♪ since the day i was born ♪ worry ♪ oh, worry, worry worry, worry ♪ [ announcer ] when it comes to things you care about, leave nothing to chance. travelers. take the scary out of life. her morning begins with arthritis pain. that's a coffee and two pills. the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills.

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a telephone poll pole house, happiest people, and a bee invasion. this looks like something out of "the swiss family robinson." a family home 70-feet tall built out of telephone poles. they call it phonehenge. the man who lives there was told he has to tear it down because it wasn't built to code. >> they can't beat me ever because i already won. they can take it to the bare ground, pack everything into a missile, and fire it the sun, they can't take away 30 years of

what a blast we had doing whatever we wanted. they don't even get it. the fun for me is the building. i'll have just as much fun taking that thing down as i had putsing it up. >> he doesn't sound happy. but an interesting survey tells us where the happy people are. number one, china, number two, north korea. last, number 203, the united states. what? if it sounds political, the survey was done by north korea. soccer fans are buzzing about what happened at this game in brazil. look at this. a swarm of bees came in. the players freaked out. they all dropped to the ground. so the official had no choice but to call the whole thing off. very different animal took the field in wisconsin. give you one guess -- yes. a cow. victoria, the star of the new green bay packers' commercial. she strolled into lambeau field to watch the debut on the jumbotron. the ad is for packers' ice cream. kevin bacon wants to play himself in a movie about the notorious swindler bernie

madoff. he and his wife lost a big part of their savings -- [ buzzing ] >> and robert de niro setçuç to play madoff. >> wow, six degrees of separation and kevin bacon plays himself? >> maybe he'll get a althoughç little money back -- >> what who is the mad santa claus? >> he built a house out of telephone poles. >> the sun and the rocket? >> and the moon, it takes in gamma rays. >> wow, he is mad. >> good to see you, thomas roberts, what's coming up? a busy hour straight ahead. the freak storm system that brought twisters to parts of massachusetts, at least four people have lost their lives. 40 others are injured. a major path of destruction leaves people picking up the pieces. we'll take you there. a big political day for the granite state as mitt romney makes his presidential aspirations official today in massachusetts. and she has no official schedule, but oddly enough sarah palin's bus stour traveling through massachusetts -- tour is traveling through massachusetts on the same day, off to new

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path of destruction. deadly tornadoes rip through the northeast. an update and reaction this hour to these surprise storms. another day of drama. more testimony in the casey anthony case. new scrutiny of the mother's original story about her daughter's disappearance. the photo fallout. more controversy this morning surrounding the revealing twitter pic apparently sent from the account of a new york congressman. and x-ray nation. a new report out today asking whether americans are scanning themselves to death. and it asks where we are in the war on cancer. good morning, great to have you with me, i appreciate your time. i'm thomas roberts. we are more than an hour away from a big announcement by republican presidential contender mitt romney. it is expected he's going to declare he's running for president in 2012. this will come at a chili